Province, once again, takes over PDSB as widespread failures at the board persist; halts plan to lay off 60 teachers

January 3, 2023

Dear Minister Lecce,

It has been my pleasure to serve as Supervisor of the Peel District School Board (PDSB) over the last two and a half years and I thank you for the opportunity to lead the board on the path toward effective and accountable governance and leadership. It has been a challenging but equally rewarding experience and I am pleased to leave the PDSB knowing that it is a more capable, focused and responsive board that can better serve the needs of its students and communities. 

That was the beginning of a letter written three years ago by Bruce Rodrigues, the man appointed by Stephen Lecce, the province’s education minister at the time, to fix a badly broken school board, the third largest in the country.

It appears the reassurance from Rodrigues, that the Peel District School Board was finally “on the path toward effective and accountable governance and leadership”, was severely premature.  

Education Minister Paul Calandra announced yesterday, January 28, that the provincial government will once again take over governance and leadership of the PDSB due to “concerns about infighting and long-term financial unsustainability that risk disrupting learning and undermining student outcomes.” 

“I’m taking immediate action to put an end to mismanagement and disruption,” Calandra said. “The action I am taking at the PDSB will put an immediate halt to a disruptive mid-year upheaval in staffing that would have created uncertainty for parents, students and teachers alike.”

A Ministry press release Wednesday detailed the immediate provincial supervision of the PDSB which halted the board’s “imminent layoff plan, which would have seen 60 classroom teachers lose their jobs and caused significant learning disruption for nearly 1,400 students in the middle of the school year. The board has also run a deficit for five consecutive years, affecting its long-term financial sustainability. The board has been given 14 days to respond to the Minister’s concerns, after which the Minister will determine whether to continue with supervision.”

Melody Hurtubise, president of OPSEU 2100, which represents 4,800 educational assistants (EAs) and early childhood educators (ECEs) at the PDSB, told The Pointer on Wednesday that while funding cuts by the Ministry have been extremely challenging, she expressed frustration with PDSB leadership over what she described as financial mismanagement. “We have seen an increase in the middle and upper management positions, and they continue to get raises, but they cut educational assistants and the early childhood education supports, so the students are not actually being supervised anymore.”

She credited the work of unions for drawing attention to the shocking plan by management to layoff 60 teachers in the middle of the school year. She said the scheme was pulled together as nine new management positions were created this year across several departments, including four coordinating principals and four coordinating vice-principals in special education, as well as a new superintendent in the Human Resources department.

Sources inside the board told The Pointer that if the education Ministry continues its supervision beyond the interim 14-day period, widespread financial mismanagement will be uncovered including the creation of unnecessary new administrative positions at the expense of protecting educators and classroom support staff. 

PDSB Director Rashmi Swarup did not respond to questions.

The Ministry said in its press release that PDSB leadership has failed to manage its budget properly and that the board has been in deficit for the last five years. 

The infighting Calandra mentioned has been widely reported.

Following a ceremony in November to celebrate the opening of PDSB’s Centre for Black Excellence, board Chair David Green made false claims about why Kola Iluyomade’s name was dropped from the building despite a 2022 commitment by PDSB officials to name the facility after the widely revered Black advocate. 

Iluyomade was instrumental in exposing the harmful anti-Black racism systemic within the PDSB. He passed away in 2021.

The following year, the PDSB committed to name the new centre after him, and a report from Swarup in 2023 described Iluyomade as a “modern-day Superman”. Naming the Centre for Black Excellence in his honour, she wrote, would become “a symbol of acknowledgement by the Peel District School Board of Kola's transformative leadership.” The report made it clear that naming the new centre after him was in line with the board’s official policy. 

Trustees who had opposed Iluyomade’s advocacy, and had allowed him to be targeted in a board threat to ban him from entering PDSB properties, ignored the report and stripped Iluyomade’s name from the centre. They cited an updated policy—approved by themselves a few weeks earlier—that prevented them from naming the centre after "identifiable individuals”. 

Green falsely claimed it was the provincially appointed supervisor who recommended the changes to the naming policy. The supervisor, Bruce Rodrigues, was appointed in June 2020 after trustees repeatedly failed to show they were capable of eliminating the systemic anti-Black racism that had been widespread in the board for decades.

When asked by The Pointer about the changes to the naming policy shortly after the board had committed to recognizing Iluyomade by putting his name on the building, Green repeated the claim that trustees were just following directions from the Province. (Listen to a recording of the interview here.) 

"We didn't create the criteria. It had already been created by the supervisor, and all we did was pass on what was already created. So the present trustee (sic) did not create that. It's misguided information that's out there. We didn't create it."

This is blatantly false. 

Draft versions of the policy available online clearly show that the clause prohibiting naming schools and facilities after "identifiable individuals” was added after Rodrigues left the supervisor position in January 2023. 

Minutes of the April 12, 2023 meeting of the PDSB’s Governance and Policy Committee make it clear that the direction to prohibit naming schools after identifiable individuals was given by members of the committee—the PDSB’s trustees including Green who make up the committee—not the province or its appointed supervisor: “Superintendent of Education, Donna Ford, noted that the Naming and Renaming of Schools, Special Function Areas, and Facilities Policy is brought back following consideration of the feedback provided by this Committee. She advised that the Committee expressed a preference that schools are not named after people.”

Members present at that meeting included trustees Stan Cameron, Satpaul Singh Johal, Karla Bailey, Chair David Green, Brad MacDonald, Jill Promoli, Lucas Alves, Jeffrey Clark and Susan Benjamin.

In 2023, following the board’s decision to keep Iluyomade’s name off the Centre for Black Excellence, community backlash and a letter from Advocacy Peel prompted Stephen Lecce, the minister of education at the time, to send a letter to the PDSB, ordering trustees to honour their commitment to name the Centre for Black Excellence after Iluyomade: “I am satisfied that promises were held out to community members that this would be done…I expect, that as a Board of Trustees, you will, without further delay, take the needed steps to fulfill the commitment to name the Centre for Black Excellence after Kola Iluyomade,” Lecce wrote in a July 2023 letter to PDSB Chair David Green, obtained by The Pointer. 

PDSB trustees ignored a demand from the provincial government to name a new education centre after late activist Kola Iluyomade (right) and instead falsely claimed it was a provincial policy that prevented them from doing so.

(The Pointer files) 

Behaviour such as what was witnessed in November, when PDSB leadership ignored the direction of the Ministry, and Chair Green tried to mislead the public, created widespread divisions within the board. 

The provincial government says it is now stepping in to ensure such infighting no longer negatively impacts students.

More evidence of the dysfunction within PDSB was made public last spring when the board’s former head of equity, Poleen Grewal, filed a $7.4 million lawsuit against Director Swarup and the PDSB. Residents and community groups voiced skepticism about the board’s commitment to stamp out systemic racism after the lawsuit was filed. 

The former associate director was responsible for addressing issues around alleged discrimination and guiding the PDSB into the future, following decades defined by a culture of systemic racism in an education system where some 85 percent of students are not white.

The initial takeover of the board was initiated when former minister Lecce, following a review he had ordered, said he had seen enough evidence of racism in the PDSB that had done devastating harm to students and their families for decades.

With intensified scrutiny on the board after Lecce’s probe, in April of 2020, the PDSB, on behalf of its elected trustees and its senior leadership, issued a broad apology for decades of harm done to Black students. 

“In our Board, systemic racism exists,” the PDSB’s leadership admitted in the public apology. “We must do all we can to eliminate the marginalization experienced by Black students and staff in Peel schools.”

The letter acknowledged “harm to the community, particularly to the Black community” and that “decisions were made which have caused hurt and harm for members of the Black community, both those who live in Peel and others who live outside of Peel.”

“The Board and Trustees commit to working against all issues of racism,” so the harm to students and others does “not happen again. We will continue to rebuild trust, redress the impact, listen to the voices of students, educators and the community so we can move forward in our necessary work to achieve inclusion for all through continuous progress on equity. We will make the necessary changes to ensure a safe learning and working environment for everyone.”

Grewal’s lawsuit includes evidence that suggests the words in the public apology by the PDSB were little more than lip service, and many community members agreed. 

So did former minister Lecce.

"We are determined to confront all forms of racism, discrimination, and hate, against all minority communities in our province,” he wrote in June of 2020, after efforts by PDSB administrative leaders and trustees, following the review he had ordered the year before, showed they were incapable of eradicating systemic racism. “For too long, too many kids have been left behind due to systemic frameworks that perpetuate racism. This is unacceptable and must change.”

Lecce explained, “That is why in November of 2019, I swiftly ordered an investigation into the PDSB, following serious allegations of racism.”

He continued.

“To ensure compliance with my direction, on April 27 (2020), I appointed Arleen Huggins - a lawyer and human rights advocate - to investigate the PDSB's capacity to comply with my directions. I have now received Ms. Huggins' report and would like to thank her for her effective and principled work. Her report reveals the need for real change within this board and provides a necessary component to ensuring these issues are addressed immediately and effectively.

“Most troubling, her report finds that certain directions have not been complied with, and moreover, that the PDSB lacks the capacity to provide good governance in the interests of all students of the board and to effectively carry out its responsibilities to oversee and ensure proper compliance with my directions.

“As outlined in the Education Act, I am required to provide a final opportunity for compliance from the Board. My expectation is clear: the Board must change, or I will take further action. We cannot and will not sit idle, while families and students continue to feel isolated, victimized, and targeted.

"It is clear that we must continue our work to confront racism - specifically anti-Black racism - within our schools across the province. Our Government will continue to drive change, demand improvement, and stand-up for students who face hate and racism.”

Lecce’s decision, shortly after his stunning statement, to take over the board appears to have had little effect.

Grewal alleges she was wrongfully dismissed from her job in August of 2023, after the first provincial supervision had ended, and after facing reprisal for challenging the PDSB’s discriminatory practices, then being blamed for its failures.

She is suing the school board for $7,256,000 and its Director Swarup, for $200,000.

The 41-page statement of claim includes evidence that paints a disturbing picture of a school board that fails to take responsibility for the harm it has done to students.

In a written statement to The Pointer provided in June, Grewal highlighted the work of Black advocates who helped guide her own work and inspired her to continue challenging the PDSB. 

“Black advocates, community members, and families raised key concerns about ongoing systemic barriers and the persistent exclusion and marginalization of Black students in Peel schools, as highlighted by the Ministry Review, in Black-led research, and most recently in the Ontario Human Rights Commission’s Dare to Dream report,” Grewal wrote after filing her lawsuit. 

“Working alongside community taught me to centre Black voices and narratives, and to approach the work with integrity despite resistance. This shaped my approach to ensure that the work remained authentic, respectful and guided by the perspectives of those most directly affected.”

Grewal said her legal action would hopefully serve as a reminder and example to others challenging systemic discrimination.

“I hope claims like this can be a means to hold school boards, trustees and directors accountable for performative equity efforts that are ultimately failing our students and communities,” Grewal wrote in her June statement to The Pointer. “It’s also important because those challenging systemic oppression such as anti-Black racism should be protected by our legal system. This case can show others that they shouldn’t be afraid to speak out and push for necessary change.”

Danielle Dowdy, a Parent Advocate with the PDSB's We Rise Together program for Black Student Success, voiced concerns about the board after the lawsuit was filed. 

“The launch of this lawsuit has been deeply painful, in that it has forced many of us to relive the harm that the Board continues to inflict on those fighting to disrupt and eradicate anti-Black racism at the PDSB, from Black students, to Black parents and advocates, to Poleen herself,” she said. “She was the only one at the top that Black parents trusted. Since she was let go, no one in executive leadership has come close to earning the level of trust we had with her.”

Dowdy’s direct experience contradicts what the PDSB communicated to Grewal, blaming its former associate director of instructional and equity support for the failures of elected trustees and others who undermined Grewal’s work, according to evidence included in the lawsuit. 

“Parents from We Rise Together and Advocacy Peel–groups the Board had long committed to working with–haven’t met with the Board or Director of Education in nearly two years,” Dowdy revealed. “Instead, the Board has deliberately shifted to consulting parents and community groups who are unaware of the Board’s anti-Black history, creating an opportunity to undermine longstanding parent advocates. This is a blatant attempt to weaponize well-meaning parents against those who have been deeply engaged in this work, all while giving the illusion of genuine consultation.”

The decision yesterday by Education Minister Calandra, to once again take over control of the PDSB, came as no surprise to Trustee Kathy McDonald, who for almost a decade has fought for equity and proper financial management, only to be repeatedly sidelined by her fellow trustees and other senior leadership. 

Citizen activism has routinely forced change at the Peel District School Board with parents and advocates frequently filling the PDSB chamber to hold elected trustees accountable.

(The Pointer files)

“The proof is in the pudding,” McDonald told The Pointer a day after the announcement.

"I can confidently show my record, the questions I raised, and the concerns that I've brought forward to the board. But, at the end of the day, democracy works in a way that each trustee has one vote, and decisions are made by majority rule.”

She said that though many of her efforts to bring equity and financial accountability to the board were stonewalled over the years by other trustees, who did not respond to questions following the latest Ministry takeover, she is proud of her own record and her efforts to draw attention to systemic harm and mismanagement.

She was supportive of the first takeover by the Ministry, and hopes this time, change will be forced before control is handed back to the PDSB.  

“The Minister has raised valid concerns and marching orders, so we will now have to work together to meet his demands, or face the consequences. It’s that simple.” 

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